


baby steps

by Setkia



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Human, Child is Autistic Because Fuck You, Co-Parenting, Crowley is a mess, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Genderfluid Crowley, Kid Fic, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, parenthood is hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24773377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setkia/pseuds/Setkia
Summary: “Can I help you?” asks a cheery employee with a name tag that reads "Jenny".Why yes, you can. I agreed to take in a six month old infant, despite the fact that I only occasionally remember to do my own laundry.“No,” says Crowley with a tight smile. “I think I’ve got it.”Crowley is Trying his Best™, and Aziraphale is his neighbour.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 63





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I decided to use kid fics to help my depression this time and I just ... I don't have an excuse. I wanted to do this, so I did it, even though I have so many works in progress.
> 
> To clear up things: I don't understand adoption 100%, but I am an adopted child. I played around a lot with shit, because fiction. Also, I am autistic so I feel okay making this baby autistic. I also don't know much about babies, so I Googled stuff. If St. Beryl's seems shady, it's cause it's supposed to be. I am not saying any of this is accurate. He had to get the baby somehow. The taking care of the baby will be more accurate. Please bear with me.
> 
> The baby is NOT Warlock, just thought I'd name drop it. Crowley will name it differently, it's my OC.
> 
> Do I know exactly where this fic is going? No, not at all. 
> 
> Enjoy.

Hastur and Ligur don’t show up for the Friday night shift.

Calling it a “night” shift is inaccurate, considering it starts at ten at night and goes until four in the morning, but Crowley digresses. It’s not as though the dysfunctional couple would’ve done much other than scream at each other and drink customer’s shots for them, but it’s the principle of the matter. He and Dagon manage just fine on their own, but it’s weird.

“Have you heard from them?” he asks during Last Call.

“Who?” asks Dagon noncommittally.

“Your coworkers? The ones who were supposed to be on shift?”

“Well they ain’t here, are they?” they say, as though Crowley wasn’t just commenting on the fact. “I ain’t sharing no tips with the buggers if they don’t have the decency to show up.”

“I’m not asking you to, I’m just wondering— oh, forget it.”

Something about it doesn’t feel right though, so he checks the sign in sheet and finds their signatures absent.

“I’m leaving,” says Dagon. “You finish up closing.”

“Hmm,” says the redhead, looking for Beelzebub’s number. He finds it attached to a gross piece of paper taped on the shelf below the cash register and he wonders for the thousandth time how Bub hasn’t been shut down by health services.

He dials the number and waits.

“What?”

“Er, yeah, it’s Crowley—”

“I know who you are, shit-face, I have caller ID. Why are you calling at this fucking hour?”

“Right. I was just wondering where Hastur and Ligur were? It’s just, not like them to miss a shift totally?” Show up totally stoned, or make out in the closet rather than work, sure, but never just _disappear_.

“You didn’t hear?”

“Hear what?”

“They kicked it.”

Crowley frowns. “Kicked what?”

“The bucket.”

“They’re _dead_?”

“Hm,” says Beelzebub with the nonchalance of a soulless capitalist. “M25 took ‘em right out.”

“But … what about the baby?”

“The fuck are you talking about?”

“Their baby?” Crowley repeats.

“Two men can’t have a baby, idiot, do I need to explain the birds and the bees to you?”

“No, I _know that_ ,” Crowley growls, wishing for just once his boss would be a bit less of an arsehole. “I mean, they adopted one. Some kid they named like, Warlock or some shit. Hastur was complaining about the ungodly wails at night, and Ligur tried to clean baby dribble off his shirt with the work sink and you shouted at him. You don’t remember?”

Beelzebub yawns. “’s someone else’s problem now.”

“But like, what’s gonna happen to it?”

“Not my problem. You so concerned about the tyke, you look into it. Is that all? Remember your shift starts at—”

“Nine tomorrow, yeah,” Crowley says. “Alright. Bye.”

Beelzebub has already hung up before he finishes talking, because he’s a dick.

  
Which is how Crowley finds himself driving to St. Beryl’s Orphanage at eight in the morning come Saturday.

One look at the monastery answers the question as to how Hastur and Ligur managed to convince someone to give them a leaving, breathing being. The place looks seedy as fuck, as though it belongs in some Gothic novel or some shit. Crowley’s 1934 Bentley looks _modern_ compared to the building.

He hasn’t really slept, to be honest. After Beelzebub’s comment, he found himself calling everyone he knew linked to his coworkers. Because of the ungodly hour, it was hard, but he found if you called enough times, no one could ignore you. He found out the babysitter had panicked upon learning of the duo’s death, and returned the baby to the orphanage it came from. She sounded rather pissed to have not gotten her pay for the night, but she also sounded high as fuck, so Crowley doesn’t feel too sorry for her considering she’s underage and also, from the sounds he heard, in the middle of an orgy and answering her phone for some stupid reason.

He knocks on the door and tries not to squirm as he waits.

The large door opens without any of the expected sound effects of a B horror movie, which is slightly disappointing. A nun stands before him, a severe look on her face.

“Yes?” she says.

“Er, hi. I’m a … an acquaintance, of Hastur and Ligur? The couple that adopted er, Warlock?”

“Yes?” she says again, with none of the heavenly patience Crowley’s heard nuns are supposed to have.

“I was just wondering er, what’s going to happen to him? Now that he’s er, lost his parents.” The _again_ goes unsaid. That feels like a bit much.

“He’s back up for adoption,” says the nun. She takes him in, in all his skinny silver tie and leather pants wearing glory. “Why? Are you interested?”

Is Crowley interested in taking in a child when he can barely take care of himself? Fuck no. He’s not even sure why he’s so fixated on this whole thing. He had a question, and now it’s been answered, and he’s bothered quite a few people to get such a simple response. His work is done. He should sleep while he still can, before he has to deal with his shift and more drunkards singing Mr. Piano Man off key.

“And if I was?”

 _Fuck_.

He’s about to take it back, but she opens the door wider and steps aside, welcoming him into the building, and despite himself, he follows her.

The inside is as menacing looking as the exterior. The type of spooky that makes goosebumps rise on your arm. That’s saying something, considering Crowley’s a rather big fan of spooky things.

“The thing is, Warlock, or whatever you want to call him, has been giving us trouble. That is, he’s not as cute as he was when he was born, and we’re thinking of putting him into the foster care system instead.”

“Giving you trouble?” Crowley repeats, finding that his voice echoes in the chambers.

“Well, he’s fussy.”

“He’s a _baby_ ,” Crowley says indignantly.

“Exactly.”

Crowley doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead he’s guided down a few hallways until he ends up in the St. Beryl’s Adoption Office, or so he guesses it must be, since there’s a desk and paperwork. Nothing else about it screams office though.

“We could give him to you, if you’re offering,” says the woman.

“And you are?”

“Oh, you may call me Mother Superior,” says Mother Superior. She searches through the drawers of the desk and pulls out several forms. “There’s a bit of paperwork involved, you know how it is, but anyway, if you be thinking you want it, I could hand it over by Monday.”

This is not how Crowley expected his Saturday morning to go.

“Ah, you see, I didn’t actually say anything about wanting—”

“Wonderful,” says Mother Superior. She holds out a pen as an offering to him, and he stares at it as though it’s a dagger.

Crowley is not equipped to look after a child. He can barely take care of himself most days, and the entire orphanage reeks of suspicious activity. He’s not sure if they’re a cult, or related to the mafia, but he senses that nunnery is not Mother Superior’s day job. The right thing to do would be to politely tell her no, he will _not_ be taking the child, thank you very much, and be on his way.

_“We’re thinking of putting him into the foster care system instead.”_

Crowley takes the pen.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. This is a disaster, sorry. Also I just wanted to get to the baby and then remembered that like, he can't have the baby immediately.

Instead of sleeping until his shift like a sensible adult, Crowley scours the internet for every parental advice blog that’s been created since its creation.

The screen is murder on his dyslexic eyes, but he sits through it and when he can’t, he selects the text and has Siri read to him in her robotic tones. He’s opening his bank statements before tax season, trying to figure out if this crazy scheme is even feasible, considering his wages.

The answer is it is not.

Feasible, that is.

But … _foster care_.

He can’t put a six month old through that. They’ve done nothing to deserve it.

And then it hits him.

Madame Tracy.

She lives one floor below him, and has wanted a child for longer than Crowley cares to pretend he’s been listening to her talk. She’d be _delighted_ to take on a child, without having to deal with the labour pains.

Only problem is she’s currently on a month long single’s cruise.

So new plan.

Crowley will house the little tyke until she gets back, then woo her with how adorable the little monster is, and thus save himself a headache and a child from the merciless jaws of the system.

He’s barely slept at all by the time he shows up for his nine o’clock shift.

“You look like death,” greets Beelzebub, like the fucker they are.

“Ngk.”

“Ready to work, are you?”

“Ngk,” says Crowley again.

Beelzebub hands him a whiskey. “Get mixing. And maybe drink a few.”

Crowley doesn’t steal any sips from the bottle. Instead, he mixes a few drinks and tries to turn on the charm despite the growing bags under his eyes. A crash is coming, he just knows it. The last time he stayed up this constantly he was in his twenties, which he most definitely is _not_ anymore. He’s been at the job for eleven years, which is the only reason he can move on autopilot. His small talk is shite, but it was never anything to write home about, and when he feels himself nodding off, he shoves ice cubes down his pants.

At one, Beelzebub tells him to go the fuck home and sleep it off.

Through pure stubbornness, he avoids getting in a crash.

Once he’s at his flat, he forces himself to take the stairs because though he’s not a wise man, he has enough self-preservation not to chance it with the death trap of an elevator. He nearly falls asleep trying to jam his key into the lock, but eventually stumbles in and promptly collapses, out like a light.

  
When Crowley wakes up, it’s one in the afternoon and his head hurts worse than a hangover. There’s a moment of serene calm when the throbbing in his head is the only thing he can focus on, and the events of the last few days fade into the background of his thoughts. He stumbles to his feet and begins the coffee machine, when his phone rings.

“Hullo?”

“Ah, yes, Mr. Crowley.”

_Hastur and Ligur. St. Beryl. The baby._

“Fuck.”

“What was that?” asks Mother Superior.

“Nothing,” Crowley lies through his teeth. “Nice hearing from you, Mother Superior. Was there something you needed?”

“Yes. So the baby will be available for pick up on Monday by eleven,” says the nun as though she is merely commenting on the weather, and not the strange process though which one can purchase a baby.

“Wonderful, thank you for telling me,” Crowley says in a hollow voice reminiscent of retail workers. “Is that all?”

“Yes, I believe so. Thank you so much for choosing St. Beryl’s for your adoption.”

“Yeah. Lovely speaking to you, Mother Superior. I’ve got some errands to run, so I’ll be going now.”

“Course Mr. Crowley. Have a nice day.”

He hangs up.

_Inhale._

_Exhale._

Crowley screams.

Almost immediately, there’s a rapid knocking on his door.

“Hello? Anthony? Are you in trouble?”

Fuck.

The thing is that no one knocks in a flat like Crowley’s. They bang and pound and occasionally rap. There’s only one person in the entire building with enough politeness to knock (and it’s not Crowley).

The redhead takes the spoon out of his coffee and frowns at his distorted reflection. He doesn’t have time to fix his hair, not really, and he looks every bit like he slept on the floor as he did. Taking the rubber band that keeps the post together, Crowley ties his shoulder length hair back. It’s not good for his hair to be put under such pressure by an elastic not designed to do such a job, but he wants to look halfway decent.

Shoving what little pride he has into the smallest corner he can manage, he opens his door and braces himself to face his neighbour.

“Ah, hullo, dear boy.”

Nothing can prepare him for Aziraphale LaCroix. The classics professor moved in about two years ago, and Crowley’s first impression was … not inspiring, to say the least. They haven’t spoken much since, aside from occasional greetings, seeing as the schedule of a part-time bartender hardly matches up with an elite academic.

Crowley _should_ hate him. He’s posh and wears _tartan_ for crying aloud.

Instead, he’s dreadfully smitten by his light hair and blinding smile.

“Afternoon, Professor.”

“How many times must I tell you to call me Aziraphale?”

“At least once more, Professor,” Crowley grins. “Sorry about … er,” _my crisis?_ “The noise. I’m just working some things out.”

“I must say I’m surprised to see you awake, given your schedule.”

_He notices?_

_Of course he fucking notices,_ Crowley reprimands himself. He stumbles around with exhaustion all the fucking time, it’d wake up anyone with ears.

“Ah, well, got some errands to run.”

He has to baby-proof his flat in 24 hours and _everything_ looks dangerous.

The power outlets.

The electrical sockets.

The corners of his table.

The couch is too hard.

The drawers and cabinets make too loud of a sound when closed.

The hardwood floor is a concussion waiting to happen.

The sound the shoddy AC makes might terrify an infant. (Sometimes, when he’s really drunk, it terrifies him.)

_Fuck._

He needs to purge the place of alcohol.

The two of them stare at each other in silence.

“Seeing as you’re not in any immediate danger, I suppose I’ll just … get a wiggle on.”

“Right, course,” Crowley says. He pauses just as Aziraphale turns around. “Out of curiosity, just what would you do if I _were_ in immediate danger?”

The professor pauses and blinks as though he hasn’t thought this far. “Um.”

Crowley grins. “Well, it was only a hypothetical. Have a good day, Professor.”

The redhead gives himself thirty seconds after he closes his door to bemoan how much of a total _disaster_ that interaction was.

Aziraphale LaCroix is _painfully_ out of his league in a way that makes him _ache_. The saying’s never made sense to him before, until a weird lump formed in his chest whenever he heard his voice. He hates his name, never found it fitting, but when he calls him Anthony it’s not as bad.

Thirty seconds are over and so he gets ready for the day.

There’s a voice mail from Bub, telling him to take a week off and sort his shit out, which is a Godsend if ever Crowley believed in one. Knowing Bub, he’ll undoubtedly be working double shifts once he’s back, but he’s got another human to care for so he needs the extra money.

First thing’s first, he’s got to get essentials. He can spend the rest of the week acquiring the rest of the important stuff, but it’s a Sunday so not everything is open. Diapers and food are the most important.

Also, he’s broke as shit so since the baby likely can’t crawl, he can avoid the whole dulling of his edges for a bit.

He takes a look at himself in the mirror.

He looks every bit as exhausted as he feels, but he’s hardly out to impress anyone so splashing water on his face and adjusting his shirt, he gets into the car.

  
What Crowley’s _hoping_ will happen is a quick pop in to one of those stores with a name like Ma and Pa’s. He’s praying he’ll find some aisle labelled _Basic Baby Essentials_ , stuff his cart, and then _maybe_ the chip machine will accept his tap, and then he’ll be out in a flash.

What happens _instead_ is he walks into the store and discovers it’s like Black Friday, but _worse_.

There are screaming babies _everywhere_. Either the parent is on their first child and has no idea what to do, or they’ve had so many, they don’t give a shit anymore. He sees one woman pull things off the racks and plop them into her carriage barely even glancing at what’s landing in her basket. Another woman is in a corner, screaming at an infant while tears streak down her face and the child blinks at her confused.

In and out, that’s all he wants.

So he struggles his way through hoards of parents who seem to have as much of a clue as he does, and stuff his basket with as many diapers as he can without looking much more of a lunatic than he already does. Once he’s sure the baby has enough diapers to be changed every hour, he enters into the food section and freezes.

As a male, Crowley does not produce breast milk. And so begins the debate of which type of baby formula to feed his temporary baby.

He must be standing there a long time, because a lady manages to give him a surprise by tapping on his shoulder.

“Can I help you?” asks a cheery employee with a name tag that reads _Jenny_.

_Why yes, you can. I agreed to take in a six month old infant, despite the fact that I only occasionally remember to do my own laundry._

“No,” says Crowley with a tight smile. “I think I’ve got it.”

He ends up stuffing his cart with three different formulas, just to be safe, and drives back to his flat in a way that only _mildly_ breaks the speed limit. He’s got a living, breathing _thing_ counting on him to not get into a crash, so reckless driver he can not.

He’s trying to open his front door while balancing all his bags when who should show up by the angel themselves.

“Need some help there, Anthony?”

“Crowley,” he hisses out, forgetting himself on impulse. Anthony is a _terrible_ name and is very _not him_. But when he sees the confused, and slightly hurt look on his neighbour’s heavenly face, he quickly puts on a smile. “Er, I mean, if it’s not a bother.”

And so Aziraphale LaCroix takes the bags from his arms and allows him to get his door open, like the good gent he is.

“Expecting a child?” asks Aziraphale, and if he weren’t completely sure the man could never commit a sin such as snooping into someone else’s shopping bags, he’d accuse him of just that. Then he remembers that the shop gave him bags with its name printed all over it.

“Yes. Well, no. It’s complicated.”

“Didn’t know you were seeing anyone,” muses Aziraphale with— _maybe disappointment?_ but Crowley is known to read too much into things.

“I’m not!” replies the redhead perhaps a bit too loudly. “That’s the complicated bit. Er. I’m … housing a child. For a bit.” And then he realizes he can’t drive a car with a baby in hand and— “Actually, I have a favour to ask. Since you seem to be saving me all day, would you mind doing me one more?”

Aziraphale grins bright enough to come with a warning sign. “What is it?”

“I er. I need someone to come with me tomorrow to pick it up. _Him_ up,” Crowley corrects. It’s not like he’s collecting a parcel at the post— well, it _sort of_ is, but there’s no return to sender.

The professor’s eyebrows rise. “The child?”

“Er. Yeah. Only if you’ve got the time. I know you’re busy and all that, what being an academic.”

“It’s summer, Anthony.”

Crowley’s nose wrinkles. “How about I stop calling you Professor if you stop calling me Anthony?”

“It’s your _name_ ,” says the blond as though he’s scandalized.

“Anthony,” Crowley echoes. “Never liked Anthony. Crowley’s much more _me_. It’s almost my name, you know.”

There’s a pause between the two of them.

“What time would we be picking up the child?”

“Oh, he’ll be ready by noon, I’m told so … leave at eleven thirty?”

Aziraphale nods. “Well then, I’ll leave you to it. See you tomorrow, Ant— Crowley,” he corrects quickly.

Crowley, _someone help him_ , salutes in response and then hurries into his flat before he can make any more of a disaster of this social interaction.

Well. That went ... it went. 

And now he's got a sort-of-date picking up his temporary child from an orphanage run by possibly occultist nuns tomorrow.

How is this his life?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you see the Pirates of the Caribbean and Broadchurch references?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The baby has finally arrived!  
> (I kept trying to write this chapter through Crowley's POV, and it was NOT working so ... tada. But the majority I think will be Crowley's POV.) The main focus of the fic will be Crowley learning about parenting, first and foremost. I know nothing about child care because I am practically a child myself and Googled things to make sure he wasn't glaringly wrong about some things, but yeah ... Also I hope you love the baby as much as I do!
> 
> Also this is meant to be sketchy cause Satanic nuns. I swear, we're not going into it. Unless maybe we are? But don't think too hard about it. Had to get the baby to them somehow, and it was this, or it randomly appears on his doorstep.

When Aziraphale imagined getting to know his redheaded neighbour, driving in an old fashion car to an obscure building in the middle of nowhere was not what he had in mind.

Anthony J Crowley has lived across the hall from the professor for something approaching three years, and yet they have never held a conversation for longer than five minutes. Aziraphale attributes this to the odd hours the man keeps, and the constant grading which keeps himself busy, but when three summers have passed and he still has yet to manage more than an off-handed “hello”, he has to admit the truth.

Aziraphale LaCroix may be, very slightly, infatuated with the man.

Aziraphale’s confidence is shaky on a good day, but add to it a man with legs long enough to inspire Michelangelo and hair that ties his tongue into knots, and he’s an absolute _goner_.

If he's being honest, it's because the man's intimidating. Anth— _Crowley_ moves with a swagger that Aziraphale could only _hope_ to achieve. He’s got confidence in spades, and the looks and attitude to back it up. What could he want with a stuffy professor?

Now he sits in the passenger seat of a restored Bentley, wondering if perhaps he misjudged the man and is in the middle of being kidnapped.

“So, this er, child.”

“Yes?”

“Do they have a name?”

“Oh. Er.”

Aziraphale looks at him from the corner of his eye. The sunglasses make it hard to tell what the redhead is thinking, but he senses a sort of, not panic, but tension in his shoulders that he recognizes whenever he asks students if they’ve done the reading.

“You’re housing a child, and don’t know their name?”

This entire situation seems suspicious. They’ve been travelling down a road sans signs for about fifteen minutes and Aziraphale is beginning to think he’s in a low-budget horror film.

Crowley taps the steering wheel and doesn’t comment.

“I’ve been thinking. Of one.”

“Do you know the child’s gender?”

“Male.” Crowley says this firmly, and kind of proudly, like he’s glad he can answer at least one of Aziraphale’s questions. “Well. So far.”

“So far?”

“I mean, who am I to predict if the sex doesn’t line up with their gender once their older? I mean, the kid’s got a dick, presuming he’s not intersex or, even if he is, it’s complicated what’s down there, but er. Yes. No. Male. He’s male. Until he confronts society’s expectations and decides if he’s into that shit or not.”

Aziraphale doesn’t know the details of the child Crowley will be housing, and even the way he put it yesterday sounded … odd, to say the least, but he’s beginning to suspect not even _Crowley_ knows the finer details of child-care.

“Kane,” says Crowley. “As a name, you know. I was thinking. Very modern sounding. Could call them K, to make it more gender-neutral, so he doesn’t feel pressured to stick with it. Ah, here we are.”

Aziraphale at this point has been making a profile in his head for this child, with a certain sinking suspicion that he may know the circumstances that would lead Crowley to taking one in, and finds himself horrified to be right as they approach St. Beryl’s Orphanage.

It’s an old building that belongs in a brochure about castles and Victorian architecture. It is, most certainly, haunted.

Crowley kills the engine, but doesn’t move.

“Right then.”

He turns to Aziraphale for the first time in the day.

“I … well, I’ll go pick him up, then. Er.” His brows furrow. “Now that I think about it, this is crazy. What am I doing? I barely know you, I should just send you back, you didn’t agree to do this crazy shit.”

“I actually, sort of did.”

“Yes, but that’s a Brit thing. Not me, though. Got tons of Scots on my father’s side, s'why I’m so ruddy brilliant at being a knob. I’ll just drive you back, this is stupid—”

“Mister Crowley!”

There appears to be a nun running towards them, a frantic air about her as she clutches a bundle of blankets in her arms. She’s wearing a bright smile that is sweet, and yet, inherently untrustworthy.

“Shit.”

Crowley swings open his door, and begins to make his way over to the woman. Aziraphale feels rather useless just sitting inside the Bentley, so he gets out as well. He runs a mental tally of the redhead’s purchases from the day before and realizes the reason he is here is simply because Crowley had not remembered to purchase a car seat.

His offer to take Aziraphale back is ridiculous now that the professor knows his purpose. Did Crowley expect to drive back to his flat with a baby in his arms?

By the time Aziraphale gets to the two adults discussing the paperwork, the woman is trying to hand over the baby and Crowley’s hands are clenching and unclenching into fists. He reaches out slightly to take the child, but then retracts his arms, as though he’s scared.

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, it’s just a baby,” Aziraphale says, taking the baby from the nun’s arms.

The baby silences immediately. Almost as if it’s holding its breath, which is not recommended, considering its limited lung capacity. It blinks up at Aziraphale with big, green eyes that hungrily take in the world around him. Then one of his tiny hands reaches out and tries to grab at his bowtie.

“Oh, no, silly billy! That’s not for you to touch!”

The baby looks at him with inquisitive eyes, or maybe it’s just the size of them that asks a question. He places his hand in between the bowtie and the baby, and finds the child grabbing his finger.

Aziraphale falls in love instantly.

“I wasn’t aware you had a partner.”

The nun’s voice brings Aziraphale back to the present and suddenly he’s flushing.

“Oh, no, I’m not—”

“He’s not—”

“Wonderful!” says the woman with a clap of her hands.

The sound seems to startle the baby, who Aziraphale holds closer to his chest. Protective instinct has now kicked in, and he wants to remove the youth from this nun’s company as soon as possible.

“Right, well, we’ve got the kid now. We’ll be taking ‘im. Er, I filled out all the paperwork? And the money involved, that’s gonna be in like … er, instalment plans?”

Aziraphale blinks and it dawns on him that Crowley really has no clue what he’s doing.

“Of course,” says the nun and to his horror, the professor realizes neither does the nun.

He ends up back in the Bentley, holding the child against his chest while Crowley starts the engine once more and backs out of the orphanage’s parking lot. The entire transaction fades into the background as he tries to come to grips with his apparent reality.

It’s not that Crowley drove _badly_ on their way to the orphanage, but now that the baby is onboard, there’s a caution in his stops and starts that wasn’t there before. They drive in relative silence as the baby hiccups a little with each bump the car encounters and Aziraphale remembers that there are no seatbelts and wonders how Crowley is going to secure a car seat without one.

“So … you own a baby now.”

It seems as good a conversation starter as any, given the circumstances.

“Er. Technically, yes.”

“You’re a father.” There’s an awe in his tone.

“No. No, I reject that title. It holds responsibility I am not equipped for. I don’t accept it. I am just a … transitionary place for the kid. Like a pit stop.” He frowns. “That sounds bad. I’m better than a pit stop. I’m a drive-thru movie in the kid’s life. Yeah. That’s it.”

“Legally, the kid’s yours, isn’t he?” Aziraphale asks, because _one part of this whole situation must be simple_ , mustn’t it? “I mean, regardless of whether or not you accept the title, you’re his guardian.”

“ _Temporary_ guardian… babysitter,” Crowley corrects hastily. Even behind the glasses, Aziraphale can see his eyes are frantically scanning the road. It’s not a bad method to be aware of disasters that should suddenly appear when driving, but there’s something manic about it that reveals his troubled state.

“You _are_ getting a car seat though, yes?”

“Car seat,” Crowley echoes. “Yeah. Sounds like a good idea. And clothes.”

“And clothes?” Aziraphale echoes. “You didn’t buy _clothes_?”

“Listen, priorities are making sure the kid’s fed and not like, literally sitting in his own shit. Clothes are … not optional, but not a priority when it’s a Sunday and you’ve just accidentally adopted a living, breathing … _thing_.”

“How long are you … housing him?” he asks, deciding to use Crowley’s own language.

“A month.”

“On your own?”

“… Yes.”

Aziraphale frowns. “Are you sure about that?”

“What, you think I’d kill the baby?” Crowley rolls his eyes. “I’m not up for murdering kids. Not my style.” He turns onto the road that’ll lead them back to normal London. “The kid’ll live. He’ll be fine.”

“I wasn’t talking about him.” Not to say that Aziraphale _isn’t_ worried about the baby, but the state Crowley is in, he doesn’t seem prepared to look after _anything_ , never mind a baby or himself. “I’m just saying, help would probably be … useful.”

Crowley clears his throat awkwardly. “You offering?”

Aziraphale has lived a fairly boring life in his almost four decades of existence. He went to school, disappointed his family greatly by becoming a professor of all things ( _at least you’re not a teacher,_ he’s constantly reminded at each family dinner), and has lived in peace with a mundanity that he is not tired of, but perhaps … uninspired is the right word.

He’s been looking for a reason to get to know his neighbour for the past three years, and well, he’s already smitten with the baby.

“Perhaps.”

They stop at a red light, and Crowley turns to him.

He takes him in, baby and all.

“Is it just the Brit in you? Or do you mean that?”

“You know, the British weren’t all niceties,” Aziraphale reminds him. “Imperialism?”

“Ah, of course. And what they did to the Scots.” Crowley drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “Right then. Er. If you don’t mind.”

“Well, _someone’s_ got to refer to Kane by name, and I highly doubt it’ll be you.”

"Er. I'm adjusting."

The light turns green.

"So. Car seat?"

"Car seat."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will shove Scottish Crowley down your throat until you beg for mercy.
> 
> (Also no offence to intersex people. Crowley babbled, and it just ended up this way. Sorry.)


End file.
